Helpful hints and friendly notes from the world-acclaimed photography instructors at BetterPhoto.com

September 2007

September 29, 2007

A few weeks ago I started this series of blogs about what sorts of controls transferred from film cameras to digital cameras, consequently I written about shutter speed and aperture quite a bit. There is another area I’d like to mention in connection with this theme: filters. Now I have over a hundred filters I used to use to do accurate color correction with film, this was particularly tricky with copy work. Most of those filters now sit unused, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t use filters. There is one area where filters are particularly important, balancing lights. It is sometimes confusing to a digital camera user why you need to do this; after all doesn’t the camera have white balance? The problem is that the camera can only accurately balance to one type of light. So if you are shooting a living room at night with existing tungsten lights and you fill with strobe light the colors will not match well. The result is either an accurately colored room with yellow lights or a blue room with accurate lights. If you use a gel designed for movie lighting over your strobe you can bring all the light into the same general color, much more pleasing. The gel I would pick in this case is called a CTO or a full orange. There are several companies who make filters for lights including Rosco (www.rosco.com). One thing to be sure of is that the filters you buy won’t burn, the heat from modeling lights can cause poor quality filters to melt and burn.

You can also use filters to adjust the mode of a shot, mixing colored light with light that is accurately balanced. This can be a very effective look. I will use normally balanced light for a large light source, and use warm light, say a 1/2 orange for a hard light to define the side of the face. You can make a very effective portrait in this way. I will also use a filter to change the color of my background. In the image I’m including with this blog I used one large light source and three hard light sources. The hard light sources were all lower power and all were filtered.

The last place I use filters is on the camera. I will often use a polarizer either to control reflection or increase saturation.

September 27, 2007

Are You A Photoshop Junkie?Photoshop junkies are people who religiously upgrade from one version to the next without thinking as if a new release were some type of signal that the current version of the program would soon expire and stop working. Others upgrading without a second thought may believe that owning the newest version of Photoshop automatically makes their images better. Regretfully, "cool" new features may sound enticing, but in the long run these enhancements may be something you rarely use -- or use once in a lifetime -- that isn't a reason to upgrade. The boring reality is that sometimes what you have is really what you need. While it does not carry the social status of owning Photoshop, it is easily possible that Photoshop Elements may serve every need you have even if you are a demanding digital technician (and at a savings of 90% (!) of the cost of Photoshop). Upgrading out of habit, obligation or anything other than a clearly defined need makes you a junkie.

The Truth About Upgrades
It is Adobe's job to make their product compelling enough so that you want to upgrade. In the early years of Photoshop, every version had a significant new feature. Digital imaging had a lot of maturing to do from the first release in 1988, so the room for improvement seemed endless. Now, as Photoshop has matured, the list of enhancements for any version may be as long as your arm, but it may be less clear if you really need to upgrade because features are not always something every user will benefit from.

Richard's Philosophy of Upgrades

Don't automatically upgrade to a new release of Photoshop. You don't owe it to Adobe, and your version of the program will still work months and years from now.

It is not a social embarassment to skip an upgrade version of Photoshop. For example, if you are on CS2 already, you can probably wait for CS4. People may point and wisper under their breath, but how long can they do that for? Just ask them for a compelling reason to upgrade.

Know the Photoshop upgrade cycles. You can count on a new version every 18 months or so. Don't get the last version after it's been out 17 months when it suddenly goes 'on sale' or you'll be looking and yearing to get the next version in a month all over again.

Don't be swept away by the hype of the 'cool' factor of new Photoshop tools. Advertising can make features look more promising than they are. Find out what tools and functions actually do by reading reviews before you upgrade, and weigh how much you think you'll actually use them.

Find at least two actual must-have features in any new Photoshop upgrade that will save you time, effort or improve image quality on a daily basis before considering an upgrade.

Don't upgrade if there are a significant number of tools and features that you already don't know how to use. Learn the tools you have. New features will take weeks, months and perhaps years to incorporate into your workflow. Give them time to sink in before looking for more features you won't use.

Find out about system requirements and compatabilities BEFORE you purchase a Photoshop upgrade. If you purchase a version that requires a new operating system, it may trigger a reaction where you'll have to buy a whole new system at many times the cost of the upgrade just to run it.

Just because it costs more doesn't mean it does more for you. Know what you are buying. For example, don't get the extended version of Photoshop CS3 instead of the vanilla version if you have no interest in medical imaging, 3D modeling and video editing.

Adobe has consistently put out an enticing product that gives users a real reason to upgrade. Adobe does work hard at it, they have a fabulous, well-tested product, and have generally productive reasons for upgrading. However, there is no reason to feel pressured, rushed or obligated. The new version will be there when you are ready for it, and your old, tried and tested techniques for image editing will not soon be worn out and displaced by the latest tool if you learn the right techniques. The real task is to learn the right techniques and theory to make your image editing efforts less tool-centric.

A Short List of Photoshop Enhancements by Version

This is an extremely abbreviated list of enhancements for Photoshop versions. Versions 2 through 7 list the major enhancements only. CS versions are listed in greater detail so it will be evident what was added in the newer versions and what you may gain by upgrading from prior versions.

Note: At this point Photoshop broke into the CS versions, the first of which was released on October of 2003. As more users still own these versions I'll use more comprehensive (but still partial) lists...

September 26, 2007

Finding nature doesn't have to involve a big trip to a big national park! By using a telephoto (to zero in tight on a small scene) and by seeking out dynamic light (to capture a subject in colorful lighting conditions), you can turn your back yard or a nearby parkland into your own personal nature studio!

In my little slice of the Northern California countryside, for example, a small pond offers many photo opportunities. Some thoughts relating to the accompanying images:

- A 80-200mm zoom helped to isolate the grasses, reflections, and colors while leaving out the surrounding - and potentially distracting - shoreline.

- Varying the time of day radically altered the look of the scene, with the pond reflecting the color of the sky.

- Switching formats (horizontal and vertical) can be a great technique for quickly altering a composition. Not all scenes work both in both formats, but it pays to check whenever possible - just in case!

That's it for now. Have fun discovering - and then exploring - those small wonders of nature in your part of the world!

September 24, 2007

I have a large folder in my photo library that consists of nothing by pictures of the sky. I have rainbows, stormy clouds, puffy cumulous clouds against blue, lightning, sunrises, sunsets, hazy sunlight, etc. I find that these are a valuable resource because so many outdoor images have an uninteresting sky, or even one that is distracting to the subject. We just don’t have control over the sky, so I am constantly replacing it with cloud formations or dramatic weather to enhance the original. This ability has significantly increased my artistic control over the final photos, and it has increased my sales.

Both images that you see reproduced below were taken with a white sky. This made the pictures pretty much worthless. The addition of the gray clouds behind the flag and the hazy sun behind the tall ship made all the difference.

September 23, 2007

When I decided to be a professional photographer, I quickly realized that clients don’t care why or how I didn’t get the shots they need. It doesn’t matter – they just find the images elsewhere. Therefore, I had to push myself to get the best, the most dynamic, and the most compelling images I could. In many instances, this requires getting permission to gain access to well known places that otherwise would be off-limits to the public.

The pictures you see here were taken the inside of the famous opera house in Vienna, Austria. Most stock photographers wouldn’t take the time to arrange this kind of access, so I asked a security guard where the administrative office was for the opera. It was only two blocks away, and I went there and spoke to the person in charge. I asked if I could photograph the beautiful three-story marble entrance as well as the performance area, and for a modest fee was granted permission to do so. All the lights were turned on and I was free to use a tripod. It was exciting to have such a beautiful theater all to myself for as long as it took to get the pictures.

Even if you have no interest in selling your work, making the extra effort to gain access to great subjects will dramatic improve your ratio of good to bad pictures. You'll get images that few others have taken the trouble to capture.

September 20, 2007

When I find a stationary subject I really like, I try to shoot it in as many different ways as possible. And one foggy morning at my pond, I did just that with this bright red wooden boat. The light was right: soft from fog and very pleasing ... ideal for capturing colors and details.

My self-assigned goal this particular day was to give one specific lens a creative workout - my 12-24mm wide-angle zoom (paired with my Nikon D-SLR) - while coming up with a variety of compositions. In the accompanying examples, the focal lengths were almost identical (22mm in one, 24mm in the other) ... I used format (horizontal, after shooting a vertical) and camera position (moving physically closer and pointing my camera downward for the horizontal) to create two very different images.

Note, too, that I chose a viewpoint that emphasized the graphic-design quality of the strong diagonal lines formed by the boat and paddles. I even re-positioned the paddles after shooting the bigger view! Remember: It's my pond and my boat :-)

This is the sort of personal project around my home that keeps my shooting eye sharp while also providing some photographic fun during the many times that I can't make it out to a more exotic locale!

September 18, 2007

The important thing to remember is that changing the focal length of your lens does not change where you stand it only changes the way your picture is cropped. So if you take a picture of a person’s face with your widest angle lens you will be inches from the subject if you fill the frame with just the face (unless you don’t own a wide angle lens). If you frame the shot the same way with your longest lens you may be more than 10 feet from the same subject, depending on how long a lens you own. You should really do this exercise and compare the results. In the image with the wide-angle lens your subject will probably look extended and strange. The telephoto image will look flat. The difference isn’t the lens it is where you stand. If you took a third image with the wide-angle lens, but standing where you stood with the telephoto lens and blew up the image to match the telephoto image, besides fewer pixels, you would notice the same flatness you saw with the telephoto lens. If you want to make images have a greater three-dimensionality stand closer to your subject and use a wider lens. If you want your images to be compressed stand further back and use a telephoto. No amount of new lens technology will change this.

People often stand to far away from a person to make an intimate portrait, they find being close to the subject embarrassing. This causes a flatter look in the portrait. I use an 80-100mm lens on my full frame camera for portraits. I make more pictures with wide-angle lenses, 18mm to 40mm on my full frame camera, than often than telephoto lenses.

I’ve included a picture of Lance made with a 28mm lens and with a 200mm lens. I tried to keep the size of the head the same. You can see the huge changes in the way the face appears, the charges are a result of the difference in camera position. With the 28mm lens I am just inches from the subject and with the 200mm lens I am almost 10 feet from the subject. You should try this for yourself. Next week filters!

September 16, 2007

I placed a model of a velociraptor in front of a shot of the Thai jungle using the cut and paste method I describe in my on-line course Creative Techniques in Photoshop here at Betterphoto (http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=75). I then created the reflection using the Photoshop plug-in ‘Flood’ (made by Flaming Pear) which, in my opinion, makes a very realistic reflection. I like this image, but there is one major problem with it: the lighting.

When you cut and paste images together, the lighting has to match or else the image doesn’t work. In this case, if you know what to look for, the only conclusion you can come to is that this was a composite image that wasn’t done well. Look at the light on the dinosaur. The direction is coming from the right side and sidelighting the reptile. The sun, however, is behind the model. Therefore, you wouldn't see light on the front of the body. This reveals the image as obviously a composite – and one that isn’t perfect.

Now compare the same reptile in front of a scenic of Lake Powell. In this image, both the velociraptor and landscape are side lit and therefore the animal looks like it belongs in this scene. This composite looks real, and even though no one actually has photographs of live dinosaurs, the allusion looks perfectly plausible.

September 12, 2007

Well I hope I haven’t lost too many readers by going on about aperture for three blogs, but it is really important to understand this in order to make good pictures. The idea is that the use of the right aperture allows the photographer to control what part of an image the viewer concentrates on.

The next part of understanding aperture I want to discuss is the hyper focal distance. This is the point at which you focus and stop down in order to create the most depth of field possible in a shot. Of course it is different with different focal length lenses, as we saw last week. Of course it is also different at different apertures. The thing to keep in mind, regardless of aperture and focal length is that in order to maximize depth of field you would not focus on infinity. Since two thirds of the depth of field exists behind the focus point you would not be using the depth of field efficiently if you focused on the furthest point that the lens could focus on, something closer would make better use of depth of field. Also if everything in you shot is effectively at infinity than depth of field doesn’t matter.

There is a button on most cameras to help you figure that out, and sometimes it does help. The reason I say sometimes is that this button causes the lens to stop down, and that makes the picture darker. The darker image in the viewfinder can mean that the image is hard to see, which can make the preview pretty useless especially indoors. Modern cameras are set up to let you look through the lens at its widest opening, which makes focusing much easier. The lens stops down to the working aperture at the moment you activate the shutter, this system works very well. Under the right circumstances, usually bright, the depth of field button can give you an indication of how the depth of field will look.

I promised that memorizing the apertures would be helpful, the reason is that these numbers apply to any time that you are working with the area of a circle. For instance when working with light. If you have a light at 5.6 feet from a subject and you bring it closer, to say 4 feet that the light on the subject will be one stop brighter. You went from f5.6 to f4, a one stop increase in light. Similarly if you had a light at 8 feet from a subject and dragged it back to 11 feet from the subject you would lose one stop of light. Wedding photographers used to use manual strobes like the Norman 200B, they would use this principal to rapidly figure changes in exposure. The same principal made it possible to figure bellows extension, but I won’t trouble you with that now.

September 09, 2007

When I travel to a new city, and I want to find anything, I know that there are two resources that can help me. The first is the hotel concierge, and the second are taxi drivers. If these people don’t know how to find something for me immediately, they know whom to call.

The photos you see below were taken on Borocay Island in the Philippines. I had never been there before, but I knew from on-line research that they had a carnival every year just like Venice and Rio de Janeiro in keeping with the Catholic calendar. However, I arrived on Borocay three weeks after the religious event and naturally I was disappointed to have missed it.

The solution, in this case, was the hotel concierge. I told him that I wanted to photograph some of the participants from the carnival in full costume, and with a phone call he arranged three teenage boys to meet me at a place of my choosing. I thought the beach would be great, and when I saw their shell outfits I knew I had made the right choice. I paid forty dollars for the three kids which included, of course, model releases, and it turned out to be a fantastic travel experience.